Show HN: A searchable public database of cheaters in video games

Hey all I've been working on a website called GamingHerd that has spawned from dealing with so many cheaters in Valve's Counter-Strike 2.

Watch this video if you're interested into the different scales of cheats that can be used, pretty much undetectable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox1mBxrVulk&ab_channel=HaiX

Currently, Valve does not seem to have a viable solution for dealing with cheaters nor are they transparent about their intentions (I'm sure for good reason). I can only imagine the complexities they have to deal with, and at the same time there is a potential negative monetary impact. Valve makes boat loads of $$ from Counter-Strike through skins for weapons and models. It is its own economy. Banning people, even though they are cheaters, is money lost.

Furthermore, some of the solutions to deal with cheaters are to play on 3rd party services (i.e. FACEIT) that require you to install an "anti-cheat" that gives kernel level access and is owned by some questionable folks (I won't get into the details of that you can do your own research).

That brings us to GamingHerd. For now, my idea is to be Google for PC video game cheaters, smurfs (read this about smurfs https://www.idnow.io/glossary/smurfing/#:~:text=What%20is%20....), racists, throwers, etc. People you do not want to play video games with. Let me tell you, there are a lot, unfortunately.

Currently, I am working to grow this into a community and build a matchmaking service around it. The matchmaking would obviously utilize the Toxic Gaming DB (TGDB) to never allow them to use the service. I'll also have community-driven moderation, you can read a bit more about that https://slash-lathe-f55.notion.site/GamingHerd-moderation-ov.... In the perfect world this is a community of trusted gamers that you want to play video games with.

Let me know what you all think. Look forward to your feedback.

Cheers, Chris

Show HN: A searchable public database of cheaters in video games
gamingherd.com

I think a service like this is incredibly prone to false-positives and abuse, especially if you’re going to try to flag subjective things such as throwing or smurfing.

It also seems like it could be damaging, and I’m skeptical of this the “proof” in all of these proof-based accusations of boosting I’m seeing on the site. If I can find the steam ID of the owner of the site, I know who my first totally-proof-based report of boosting will be against!

All the boosts had queued with cheaters.

I do agree though that this could have false-positives. Right now anyone marked as guilty a moderator had went through and looked at stats or a demo if not sure.

Which boosted ones looks skeptical to you?

Im wondering if i should have information about who reviewed the report and have something written up in steps taken for proof. Thoughts?

Most pros have aim around 90. Anything going over 95 is absurd and highly unlikely. Some of the matches end up being “head v head” or HvH where it’s all hackers and so may the best cheat win. A bit of this is contextual.

Also a lot of cheaters you’ll see have like aim in the 90 range and < 30 utility. That is a huge smell as well. You typically have that aim after thousands of hours and with that comes knowledge on utility.

How do you tell the difference between someone being boosted by a cheater, and someone playing with their friend, who they don’t know is a cheater? I think the distinction to me is whether there is reasonable doubt. If a player has a VAC ban, sure, not much doubt there. But queuing with cheaters seems murkier! I’m not sure how you’d prove boosting by watching a replay, but I could be missing something.